Monday, February 27, 2017

The New York Times editorial for the paper’s February
26 edition (see below) made several telling points about enforcement measures
targeting undocumented immigrants:

the
policy was absurdly expensive under President Obama;

it
will get dramatically more expensive if President Trump is allowed to
follow through with his plans;

the
undocumented population has actually declined since 2008, so there would
be no justification for these measures even if this population really was
a problem.

But why did the Times wait until now to point the
policy’s drawbacks out to a wide national audience? The enforcement machinery has
been growing for more than three decades, and the facts in the Times
editorial have been obvious for years. The paper itself has had some excellent
reporting on the policy’s economic costs, but in general the Times followed most of the mass media in looking the other way while we poured
billions into programs that were as useless as they were inhumane. In 2000 the
editorial board still backed
the easily disproved claim that legalization of the current undocumented population would “beget
more illegal immigration,” and as recently as 2013 reporter Julia
Preston cited concerns that a “new wave of illegal crossings that might be
spurred by a legalization program.”

We should thank the Times’ editors for finally
getting a more realistic perspective out into the national consciousness. But
we need to remember: we might not be dealing with the Trump phenomenon now if
the Times and the other mainstream media had seriously challenged
anti-immigrant propaganda in the past.—TPOI editor.

The Immigration Facts Donald Trump Doesn’t Like

By the Editorial Board, New York Times

February 25, 2017

Let’s be clear: The moral case against President Trump’s
plan to uproot and expel millions of unauthorized immigrants is open-and-shut.
But what about the economic cost? This is where deeply shameful collides with
truly stupid.

The Migration Policy Institute reported in 2013 that the
federal government spends more each year on immigration enforcement — through
Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol — than on all other
federal law enforcement agencies combined.[…]

Saturday, February 25, 2017

The deportation raids earlier this month seem to have
galvanized the New Sanctuary Movement. In what many consider a reprise of the
19th century’s Underground Railroad, religious institutions around
the country are preparing to combat future raids by sheltering immigrants and
disrupting ICE operations.--TPOI editor

Plan to Disrupt Immigration Raids Will Enlist Songs and
Prayers

By Laura Benshoff, NPR Morning Edition

February 24, 2017

As one woman yells “Help! Help!” — pretending to be taken by
federal immigration officers — volunteers being trained to disrupt a raid begin
singing and sit down as one, blocking the officers' path.

This scene is part of a training by a nonprofit advocacy
group called New Sanctuary Movement. The group hopes to leverage a
long-standing policy that federal agents won't make arrests in houses of
worship — to create a kind of mobile sanctuary wherever a raid is happening,
through prayers and hymns.

President Trump's immigration enforcement plans are still
evolving, but the ominous feeling that they've created in communities of
unauthorized immigrants has spurred trainings such as this one across the
country.[…]

These religious leaders are creating a new underground
system to shelter undocumented immigrants

By Rafi Schwartz, Fusion

February 24, 2017

Across southern California, religious leaders are hard at
work creating the infrastructure for what could become a major form of
resistance in the Trump-era: sheltering immigrants.

Calling themselves the “Rapid Response Team,” a grassroots
network of pastors, ministers, and laypeople have begun preparing private
residences to house—and if need be, protect—undocumented immigrants at risk for
deportation under President Trump’s ongoing crackdown on the undocumented
community.

“That’s what we need to do as a community to keep families
together,” Paster Ada Valiente explained to CNN, which profiled this growing
movement on Thursday.[…]

Thursday, February 23, 2017

Today President Trump announced that his administration
is “getting really bad dudes out of this country,” adding that “it’s a military
operation.” Hours later Homeland Security John Kelly was in Mexico announcing
that there will be “[n]o—repeat—no use of military force in immigration operations.”
He also scolded the press: “At least half of you try to get that right because
it continually comes up in the reporting.”

War is peace, freedom is slavery, and a military
operation isn’t a military operation. Why can’t reporters “get that right”?
—TPOI editor.

Trump: Removal of undocumented immigrants is ‘military
operation’

By Matthew Nussbaum, Politico

February 23, 2017

President Donald Trump said Thursday that his
administration’s efforts to remove undocumented immigrants is a “military
operation.”[…]

Kelly says there will be 'no use of military force' in
deportation actions.

By Nolan D. MccCaskill, Politico

February 23, 2017

Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly softened the
administration’s rhetoric on immigration Thursday, contradicting President
Donald Trump’s characterization of his deportation plan as he and Secretary of
State Rex Tillerson sought to repair the strained relationship between the U.S.
and Mexico.[…]

ICE claims that it’s not carrying out sweeps. The
operations target specific individuals, according to the agency, and avoid
“sensitive areas” like places of worship. But ICE agents reportedly arrested
six homeless men on February 8 as they were leaving a church-run shelter in
Alexandria, a DC suburb in Virginia. Religious organizations are protesting the
arrests and asking for phone calls to ICE (888-351-4024), the Department of
Homeland Security (202-282-8000), and members of Congress (202-224-3121).

ICE Agents Arrest Men Leaving Fairfax County Church Shelter

By Julie Carey, NBC4 (Washington, DC)

February 15, 2017

Some are questioning the way Immigration and Customs
Enforcement officials are handling arrests in Fairfax County after at least two
men were arrested near a church shelter.

Oscar Ramirez said he had just left the hypothermia shelter
at Rising Hope Mission Church on Russell Road in the Alexandria section of
Fairfax County, Virginia, when about a dozen ICE agents surround him and other
Latino men.

"'Stop right there. Stop right there. Stop right there.
Stay by the wall, where we can see your hands,'" the agents said,
according to Ramirez.[…]

infuriated over news of a raid outside a church in
Alexandria along the Route One corridor.

"[ICE has] no business arresting people en mass without
reasonable suspicion to think that they may have committed some kind violation
of the law," said Nicholas Marritz with the Legal Aid Justice Center.

A fewer dozen Faith leaders and legal advocates for
immigrants are demanding answers from the federal government about the ICE raid
that happened outside the Rising Hope United Methodist Mission Church on
February 8th.[...]

Call the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration
Customs Enforcement

Tell them to Stop ICE Raids and Respect Places of Worship

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recently detained
six men coming out of the hypothermia shelter at Rising Hope Mission Church in
Alexandria, Virginia. Places of worship are considered a “sensitive location” by ICE, which means that it is not ICE policy to make arrests or
other enforcement actions at or near sensitive locations, such as houses of
worship, schools or hospitals. ICE’s arrests of individuals leaving the
church’s ministry of shelter clearly violates that policy.[...]

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

On February 21 the Supreme Court heard arguments in
Hernández v. Mesa, a suit by the parents of a

CBP victim Sergio Hernandez. Photo: AP

Mexican
teenager killed by a Border Patrol agent as the unarmed boy stood on the
Mexican side of the border. The U.S. government claims its agents have the right
to gun down foreign civilians inside their own country if the agents happen to
“feel threatened.” Meanwhile, Border Patrol agents continue to violate
the privacy rights of people entering the U.S. In a recent incident, they
insisted on searching the cellphone of a U.S. citizen who works for NASA; in
the process they may have compromised the security of another government
agency.

Two
memos released on February indicate that Homeland Security Secretary John
Kelly is working to expand the size and the powers of this obviously
lawless agency. –TPOI editor.

The Border Is A Constitution-Free Zone For Agents Who Shoot
And Kill. But Maybe Not For Long.

A Mexican teen’s death will force the Supreme Court to
decide if there can be justice for cross-border violence.

Instead, Mexican police held her back from the crime scene.
So she watched him from above the canal that carries the Rio Grande between the
American city of El Paso, Texas, and the Mexican city of Ciudad Juárez.

Her 15-year-old son, Sergio Hernández, had been playing with
a group of boys along the river, when U.S. Border Patrol agent Jesús Mesa Jr.
went to apprehend them, apparently viewing them either as drug smugglers or
people trying to cross the border illegally. He grabbed one of the boys on the
U.S. side of the river canal, as the rest fled. Sensing that someone was
throwing rocks, he turned toward Sergio, who had taken cover behind the bridge
piling on the Mexican side of the river, and shot him in the face.[...]

A US-born NASA scientist was detained at the border until he
unlocked his phone

By Loren Grush, CNBC

February 12, 2017

Two weeks ago, Sidd Bikkannavar flew back into the United
States after spending a few weeks abroad in South America. An employee of
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Bikkannavar had been on a personal
trip, pursuing his hobby of racing solar-powered cars. He had recently joined a
Chilean team, and spent the last weeks of January at a race in Patagonia.

Bikkannavar is a seasoned international traveller — but his
return home to the US this time around was anything but routine. Bikkannavar
left for South America on January 15th, under the Obama Administration. He flew
back from Santiago, Chile to the George Bush Intercontinental Airport in
Houston, Texas on Monday, January 30th, just over a week into the Trump
Administration.

Bikkannavar says he was detained by US Customs and Border
Patrol and pressured to give the CBP agents his phone and access PIN.[...]

Tuesday, February 21, 2017

The raids earlier this month were no fluke. Two memos
released on February 21 make it clear that Donald Trump was serious when he
promised to deport millions of immigrants. The memos plan for adding 10,000
agents to the bloated enforcement apparatus, for drastically expanding the
number of immigrants targeted for deportation, and for rushing asylum
applicants back to their home countries. The policies were bad under the Obama
administration; they will be worse now.The memos are available here(pdf) andhere(pdf) .

We can expect resistance to go on growing—but how will we
protect protesters from retaliation? Some 100 workers seem to have been fired for leaving their jobs to participate
in the “Day Without Immigrants” on February 16. People have tweeted calls for
boycotting the employers who did this, but it’s not clear how effective
boycotts would be, especially for local businesses in areas with strong support
for the anti-immigrant crackdown.–TPOI editor

Trump lays groundwork for mass deportations

DHS will hire 10,000 new immigration officers and reverse
a number of Obama administration policies.

By Josh Dawsey and Ted Hesson, Politico

February 21, 2017

President Donald Trump pledged during his campaign to create
a deportation force. Now, he’s equipped federal immigration agents with the
tools to potentially remove millions of immigrants from the country.

WASHINGTON — The Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday
released a set of documents translating President Trump’s executive orders on
immigration and border security into policy, bringing a major shift in the way
the agency enforces the nation’s immigration laws.

Under the Obama administration, undocumented immigrants
convicted of serious crimes were the priority for removal. Now, immigration
agents, customs officers and border patrol agents have been directed to remove
anyone convicted of any criminal offense.

That includes people convicted of fraud in any official
matter before a governmental agency and people who “have abused any program
related to receipt of public benefits.”

Monday, February 20, 2017

The Trump administration’s deportation raids in the
second week of February seem to have galvanized activists. Groups around the
country have responded by trying to develop action plans for resistance to the
raids; an especially encouraging sign is what appears to be growing support
among people who aren’t directly impacted by the threat of deportation.

The three articles below report mostly on resistance
efforts in Austin, Chicago, Kansas City and Phoenix, but similar planning is
undoubtedly under way in other areas. If you have information on resistance
networking, please send it to us at thepoliticsofimmigration@gmail.com.
(Be sure to indicate whether the information should be made public.) –TPOI
editor

Photo: Kristi Sandord/Chicago Sun-Times

How immigration activists mobilized to thwart deportation
raids last weekend

With communities on edge as crackdowns begin, grassroots
groups are acting quickly to form information-sharing networks and raise
awareness of legal rights

By Tom Dart and Ed Pilkington, The Guardian

February 14, 2017

The rumour began spreading around noon last Saturday:
immigration officials were set to conduct raids near churches in Kansas City.
Local activists immediately reacted by forming a resistance plan.

Forty-five people – attorneys, faith leaders, volunteers –
showed up at the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in downtown Kansas City at 6am
the following morning.[...]

In neighborhoods across Chicago with large immigrant
populations, people are banding together to form rapid response networks to
support their neighbors in the event of expected deportation raids by President
Donald Trump’s administration.

In the 35th Ward on the city’s Northwest Side, Ald. Carlos
Ramirez-Rosa has started what he calls the Community Defense Committee.

In Rogers Park, home to an extremely diverse immigrant
population, volunteer organizers have chosen to dub their effort Protect RP.

In Little Village, the Mexican capital of the Midwest, they
have picked the name La Villita Se Defiende, which translates to Little Village
Defends Itself.

Last week, on February 8, Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos went to
her yearly check-in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Phoenix,
Arizona, something she has done every year since 2008, when she was arrested in
a raid by notorious Sheriff Joe Arpaio and convicted of using a fake Social
Security number to work (and pay Social Security taxes that she would never be
able to collect). This time, instead of being sent home to her family, she was
loaded into a van and deported to Mexico, despite a group of her friends and
family and supporters placing their bodies in the way of the van. Her
14-year-old daughter had to pack her things for her; she, along with her
brother and father, would be staying behind.

Maria Castro -- a community organizer for People United for
Justice and a member of Puente Arizona -- was one of the people putting her
body on the line to try to prevent Garcia de Rayos's deportation. We asked her
to talk about what will be necessary to prevent more families like Garcia de
Rayos's from being split up.[...]

Sunday, February 19, 2017

More than a week later, immigrant communities are still
suffering from the effects of the Trump administration’s nationally coordinated
arrests of some 680 immigrants. DACA recipient Daniel Ramirez Medina remains in
custody; his lawyers say ICE may have altered a document. Another detainee is a
transgender woman seized after she filed for a protection order—and her abuser
may be the one who tipped ICE off that she’d be in court that day. Meanwhile, a
pro-Trump community in Missouri finds that one of the detained “bad hombres” is
a respected local restaurateur.

‘Psychological warfare’:
immigrants in America held hostage by fear of raids

After a week of raids and an
alarming government leak, uncertainty hangs over immigrant communities as they
wait to see what Trump will do next

By Julia Carrie Wong, The
Guardian

February 18, 2017

Immigrant communities across the United States are in a
state of fear and uncertainty after a week of immigration raids and leaks from
the Trump administration that have raised the specter of a mass
deportations.[…]

Lawyers for a detained "Dreamer" went to court
Friday seeking his immediate release and calling his arrest unconstitutional,
but a federal magistrate ruled he wasn't empowered to free the man without
giving an immigration judge a "first crack."[...]

EL PASO, Texas -- Local Texas officials said a review of
courthouse security footage shows federal immigration agents detained a
transgender woman seeking a protective order for alleged domestic violence
while she was inside the courthouse.[...]

WEST FRANKFORT — For more than a
week, a popular West Frankfort businessman and community leader has been in the
custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in a detention
facility in Montgomery City, Missouri, as his neighbors, family and friends
work to bring him home.

Carlos Hernandez Pacheco, 38,
from Mexico, was arrested at his home in West Frankfort on Feb. 9 and has since
been held in the Montgomery County Jail, which is also an ICE detention
facility about an hour west of St. Louis.[…]

So much for claims that Trump's deportations only target “bad
hombres.”—TPOI editor

By David Nakamura, Washington Post

February 18, 2017

Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly has signed
sweeping new guidelines that empower federal authorities to more aggressively
detain and deport illegal immigrants inside the United States and at the
border.

In a pair of memos, Kelly offered more detail on plans for
the agency to hire thousands of additional enforcement agents, expand the pool
of immigrants who are prioritized for removal, speed up deportation hearings
and enlist local law enforcement to help make arrests.

The new directives would supersede nearly all of those
issued under previous administrations, Kelly said, including measures from
President Barack Obama aimed at focusing deportations exclusively on hardened
criminals and those with terrorist ties.[...]

Friday, February 17, 2017

“That is 100% not true. It is false,” White House press secretarySean Spicertold the media pool aboard Air
Force One today, the Associated Press says in an update
to an earlier
report that the administration is considering a plan to employ up to 100,000
National Guard troops in sweeps of unauthorized immigrants. “There is no effort
at all to round up, to utilize the National Guard to round up illegal
immigrants,” Spicer went on, but “he couldn’t deny altogether that the subject
had ever been discussed in the administration,” according to AP.Later in the morning a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told Vox that the memo was an early draft that was never “seriously considered.” Vox also published the full text of the memo, which Vox reporter Dara Lind said was “still under consideration in some form.”

It’s worth noting that the Department of Homeland Security, which enforces immigration laws, is now headed by retired general John Kelly. It could be significant that the last general to head the immigration enforcement apparatus was Joseph Swing, the architect of “Operation Wetback.”

(AP) -- The Trump administration is considering a proposal to mobilize as many as 100,000 National Guard troops to round up unauthorized immigrants, including millions living nowhere near the Mexico border, according to a draft memo obtained by The Associated Press.

The 11-page document calls for the unprecedented militarization of immigration enforcement as far north as Portland, Oregon, and as far east as New Orleans, Louisiana.

Four states that border on Mexico are included in the proposal — California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas — but it also encompasses seven states contiguous to those four — Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana.

Governors in the 11 states would have a choice whether to have their guard troops participate, according to the memo, written by U.S. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general.[...]

Thursday, February 16, 2017

A nationwide February 16
walkout by immigrants had mixed results. The protest–a response to the Trump
administration’s ban on visits from seven majority-Muslim countries and to last
week’s arrests of some 680 immigrant in sweeps around the U.S.–was organized virtually overnight, mostly by personal contact and through social
media; no national organization called for it. Some areas of the country seemed
to be unaffected, and the nation didn’t grind to a halt. But the grassroots protests
were quite effective in many places, closing various restaurants and grocery stores in a
number of cities and nearly emptying some classrooms.

Even the Pentagon was
affected: its employees had to do without the complex’s Sbarro, Starbucks,
Coffee Cart, Taco Bell, Qdoba, Burger King and Freshens food concessions.

In New York City the protests included a decision to stay
out by many workers at B
& H Photo; the largely immigrant workforce at the company’s warehouses
had voted
to unionize in 2015. At the end of the day hundreds of immigrants and
supporters joined a three-hour
protest outside the ICE processing center in Lower Manhattan to demand
freedom for detained DACA recipient Daniel
Ramirez Medina. It was hard to estimate the crowd size: people streamed in
and out of the protest area, where they had to endure a cold and windy evening.
At any given time some 400 or 500 people were present, but the total number
over the three hours was probably at least twice that. –TPOI editor.

Newark students protest. Photo: Christopher Occhicone/New York Times

U.S. Gets a Taste of Life Without Immigrants in Nationwide Protests

Businesses ground to a halt across the country as marchers and strikers opposed Trump’s crackdown.

By Roque Planas and Carolina Moreno, Huffington Post

February 16, 2017

AUSTIN ― Immigrants across the country stayed away from
work, missed school or avoided making purchases on Thursday in support of a
grassroots movement aiming to show the country what “a day without immigrants”
looks like.

In an effort to combat President Donald Trump’s immigration
crackdown, restaurants and other businesses closed their doors in Chicago,
Austin, San Francisco, Detroit, New York City, Washington D.C., Charlotte and
other cities ― either in support of the immigrant community or because too few
employees turned up to work.[...]

On a ‘Day Without Immigrants,’ Workers Show Their Presence by Staying Home

“It’s like the Arab Spring,” said Manuel Castro, the executive director of NICE, short for New Immigrant Community Empowerment

By Liz Robbins and Annie Correal, New York Times

February 16, 2017

It first spread on social media, rippling through immigrant
communities like the opposite of fear and rumor: a call to boycott. In the New
York region and around the country, many cooks, carpenters, plumbers and
grocery store owners decided to answer it and not work on Thursday as part of a
national “day without immigrants” in protest of the Trump administration’s
policies toward them.

The protest called for immigrants, whether naturalized
citizens or undocumented, to stay home from work or school, close their
businesses and abstain from shopping. People planned for it in restaurant staff
meetings, on construction sites and on commuter buses, but the movement spread
mostly on Facebook and via WhatsApp, the messaging service. No national group
organized the action.[…]

Last week’s ICE raids swept up at least one immigrant
supposed to be protected by Obama’s DACA program. Government officials are
still holding Daniel Ramirez Medina,
claiming he is an admitted gang member and therefore subject to deportation;
his lawyers deny that the young man has gang affiliations. Immigrant rights
activists are encouraging supporters to sign an online petition and to
participate in protests, including one today in New York City.

Meanwhile, the ICE raids continue to spark more
organizing and protests, including what appears to be a spontaneous “Day
Without Immigrants.”

Danielis only one of hundreds of
immigrants who have been invaded by ICE at their homes and workplaces and could
be deported, regardless of their status. ICE has deported mothers who have
lived here for over 20 years. ICE has demanded papers from U.S. citizens.

The Trump administration has continuously attacked immigrant
communities. This past week there have been hundreds of arrests by ICE, spreading
fear and panic throughout our communities all over the country. Most recently,
Daniel Ramirez Medina was taken into custody despite being a DACA recipient.
This Thursday at 5 pm we rally in front of the Department of Homeland Security
Building to demand that ICE #FreeDaniel and stop #ICERaids operations and
arrests that are targeting everyone and tearing families falling apart.

This will be a legal,
peaceful and nonviolent demonstration.
Participating organizations include: Make the Road NY, United We Dream, New
York Communities For Change, New York Immigration Coalition, Working
Families Party, Taxi Workers Alliance, 32BJ.

Daniel Ramirez Medina: what we know about the DREAMer
detained by immigration agents

Is Ramirez's arrest a mistake, or an omen? 750,000
immigrants’ lives depend on the answer.

By Dara Lind, Vox

February 15, 2017

President Trump has
said that any unauthorized immigrant in the US should be deportable. But he
has
also said that the 750,000 immigrants who’ve been protected by the Deferred
Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program — which grants two-year protection
from deportation and work permits to young adults who came to the US as
children — are “terrific” people who shouldn’t worry about their futures.

Those two positions always conflicted. And while the Trump
administration is still
delaying a decision on what to do with the “DREAMers” who’ve received DACA
protections, it looks like the crisis is coming to a head. […]

After Nationwide ICE Raids, 50,000 People in Milwaukee
Rose up to Say the Arrests Were Wrong

By Oliver Ortega, The Progressive

February 14, 2017

Photo: The Progressive

As seventeen-year-old Daniel Gutierrez Ayala marched in
Milwaukee on Monday, he thought about the fate of his undocumented parents in
Trump’s America. He thought about his own tenuous future as a recipient of
President Obama’s deferred action program, and his dream of one day becoming a
lawyer who fights for the immigrant community.

As he walked, the high school senior took comfort in the
fact that he was not alone. Tens of thousands walked with him—day laborers and
business owners who closed shop for the day, schoolchildren and working parents
who had taken the morning off, teachers and office workers, activists of all
colors and creeds, all eager to partake in one of the largest single
manifestations for immigrant rights since President Donald Trump took
office.[…]

WASHINGTON — In a city where expense account meals are a
central part of power players’ lives, some of Washington’s best-known
restaurants will close their doors on Thursday in solidarity with a national
campaign to draw attention to the power and plight of immigrants.

The campaign, spread on social media and messaging apps, has
called for a “day without immigrants.” It asks foreign-born people nationwide,
regardless of legal status, not to go to work or go shopping in a demonstration
of the importance of their labor and consumer spending to the United States’
economy.[…]

Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Last week’s arrests of some 680 immigrants are almost
certainly the beginning of a large and well-publicized Trump administration
assault on the country’s more than 11 million undocumented people. The raids
have sparked a number of local protests, but what are the plans for building long-term resistance?

Below we’re listing two national organizations that are
asking people to pledge their support for targeted immigrants. There will
undoubtedly be many more efforts like these, both nationally and locally. If
you have information on additional plans to resist the raids, please contact us
at thepoliticsofimmigration@gmail.com. —TPOI editor

#HereToStay Network (United We Dream)

[United We Dream describes
itself as “the largest immigrant youth-led organization in the nation” with a
network “of over 100,000 immigrant youth and allies and 55 affiliate
organizations in 26 states.”]

I am ready to support immigrants at risk of deportation by
the Trump regime.

I pledge to physically show up for immigrants in my
community when they need me.

We are getting reports from dozens of cities that Trump
regime agents are raiding homes to deport immigrants and their families.

If you chanted “Immigrants are welcome here,” at a protest -
it’s time to show up.

If you flooded the airport to fight for refugees - it’s time
to show up.

If you hit the streets when Trump announced his immigration
orders - it’s time to show up.

The #HereToStay Network is a group of people ready to fight
for immigrants at risk of deportation. When Trump agents show up to raid
immigrants’ homes and workplaces, we'll need you to show up.

[Our
Revolution is a U.S. political action organization that developed out of
Senator Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign. The organization says its
mission is to educate voters about issues, get people involved in the political
process, and work to organize and elect progressive candidates.]

Let us know we can count on you to protect victims of ICE
raids in your community

Donald Trump’s attack on
immigrants has taken a frightening turn. Families and communities across
America are being torn apart by Trump’s xenophobic raids. This is not who we
are. The raids must stop.

Demand decency and justice for
the undocumented community. Sign up below and pledge to take action locally to
protect immigrant families and stop the raids.

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

According to ICE officials, immigration advocates have
circulated “false, dangerous and
irresponsible” reports about last week’s nationally coordinated raids, which
the officials now say netted some 680 arrests. “These reports create mass panic
and put communities and law enforcement personnel in unnecessary danger,’ ICE
charges, claiming the massive operation was simply business as usual, no
different from raids carried out under the Obama administration. The
Trump-linked rightwing newsite Breitbart.com
echoed this line and dismissed reports to the contrary as “fake news.”

It’s true
that the new “surge” carries on procedures the early Obama administration
followed, but there are significant differences—basically, that the Trump
administration has broadened the categories of people who could be targeted
and, more importantly, that an escalation of these actions is in fact precisely
what the president promised as a candidate and continues to promise now. Below
we link to two articles analyzing these differences.

Some people on the left have also stressed Obama’s record
as “deporter in chief.” Why didn’t Obama’s raids attract the same level
reporting from the media and of protests from progressives? The criticism is
justified—there certainly should have been more coverage of Obama-era raids and
more resistance to them—but that’s hardly a reason not to report on and protest
Trump’s actions now. –TPOI editor.

Trump just getting
started with immigration raids

The president granted himself sweeping authority to step
up deportations, and he's poised to use it.

By Seung Min Kim and
Ted Hesson, Politico

February 14, 2017

The arrests of hundreds
of immigrants last week marked the first large-scale raid under the Trump
administration — and the crackdown was, by all indications, just the start of
much more to come.

The expansive executive
order signed last month by President Donald Trump allows a significantly
broader population of immigrants to be picked up for deportation. And Trump has
signaled he has every intention of using that authority to carry out his
campaign pledge to deport millions of foreigners from the United States.

In North Carolina, a
husband left his house to start a car, only to be handcuffed by an Immigration
and Customs Enforcement agent. In Los Angeles, a man was arrested at the
Walmart where he worked. In Garden City, Kansas, whole apartments of people
were fingerprinted and taken into custody.

They’re three of the more
than 680 people that ICE agents around the country — from the Midwest to the
Southeast, California to New York — have arrested in the past week. Department
of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, in a statement Monday, calls it “a
series of targeted enforcement operations,” and maintains it’s no different
from what ICE has done “for many years.” Critics call it a series of nationwide
raids — and claim it’s the first step toward President Donald Trump fulfilling
his promise to deport millions of unauthorized immigrants.

The reality is somewhere
in the middle. Nothing that ICE did last week was unprecedented. But it feels
different with President Trump in the White House — and that’s something that
ICE agents and immigrants alike know all too well.[...]

Monday, February 13, 2017

The New York-based Immigrant Defense Project is providing a "Stop ICE Toolkit," which the group says "offers social justice advocates, lawyers, and community members critical information and analysis of our country’s massive detention and deportation system, as well as straightforward guidance on how to prepare for the ICE raids."

Immigration Defense Project resources include:

Definitive information on who ICE targets for deportation, priority locations for ICE activity, and common ICE arrest tactics and strategies.

Recommendations for immigrants and advocates on emergency preparedness for those at risk of deportation, individual rights during ICE encounters, and potential legal and community challenges to ICE raids.

Key takeaways from years of critical research and experience with the mechanics of the world’s largest detention and deportation apparatus — including an initial forecast of what we may see under a Trump administration.

Select internal DHS/ICE enforcement memos and training documents secured through a pending FOIA litigation — as well as summaries of raids reported to IDP, organized by common ICE tactics and ruses.

Coming soon:

An online interactive map of the raids reported to IDP in the New York City area.

The total for last week's deportation sweep was more than
600, affecting a least 11 states. Immigration officials claim that the arrests
were "routine," but President Trump’s recent
tweet gives a different picture. "The crackdown on illegal criminals
is merely the keeping of my campaign promise,” he writes. “Gang members, drug
dealers & others are being removed!” Meanwhile, analysis of Trump's January
25 executive order on deportation shows that his "illegal criminals"
and "bad hombres" could include as many as 8 million undocumented
immigrants, more than three quarters of the unauthorized population.--TPOI editor.

Immigration Agents Arrest 600 People Across U.S. in One
Week

By Liz Robbins and Caitlin Dickerson, New York Times

February 12, 2017

Federal immigration officials arrested more than 600 people
across at least 11 states last week, detaining 40 people in the New York City
area, law enforcement officials said on Sunday.

It remained unclear whether the actions by Immigration and
Customs Enforcement agents were part of continuing operations to round up
illegal immigrants with criminal convictions or a ramping-up of deportations by
the Trump administration.[...]

The administration's new policies expand who is eligible
for deportation, and an Arizona mother who has lived in the country for 21
years may be its first example.

By J. Weston Phippen, The Atlantic

February 10, 2017

The deportation of Guadalupe García de Rayos in Phoenix,
Arizona, may be giving the undocumented population in the U.S. its first sense
of what the next four years will feel like. Rayos is a 35-year-old mother of
two who has lived in the U.S. for 21 years. In 2008, local deputies caught her
using a fake social security number after they raided her work, and since then
she has been required by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to show up
at regular interviews. Every year she’s talked to an agent, then been released
back to her family in the U.S. But Wednesday Rayos was arrested, and on
Thursday agents put her in a van to be deported back to Mexico.

In January, President Trump signed an
executive order that vastly expands who the U.S. considers a deportation
priority. The order
received little immediate media attention at the time of signing, likely
because of the many other controversial orders the president released
simultaneously. The order is full of vague language, and interpreting it has
left a lot of questions as to what’s in store for the country’s 11 million
undocumented immigrants. [...]

Sunday, February 12, 2017

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has conducted dozens of operations in the metropolitan area in the last week and arrested approximately 40 people, according to a leaked ICE memo acquired and published by the New York Immigration Coalition. The leak comes on the heels of reports Saturday night that ICE had arrested and detained five men of Mexican nationality in Staten Island.

Reports of ICE activity in the five boroughs also follow a week of heightened tension among immigrant communities and activists, with confirmation of raids and targeted arrests in at least six states including California, the Carolinas, Georgia, and Illinois. Advocates based in Hudson, New York also confirmed at least four people detained by ICE this month. While ICE has issued statements describing the arrests as "routine," advocates say they are troubled by the pace and scale of ICE operations, which they believe may indicate President Donald Trump is firing up the deportation machine.

One of Trump's recent executive orders targets for deportation any non-citizen with an arrest on his or her record. A recent analysis from the Los Angeles Times estimates that as many as 8 million people could be considered a deportation priority under Trump.[...]

New Yorkers will not be tricked by attempts to portray targeted immigrants as criminals

New York, NY (2/12/17) - In response to the fact sheet that the Department of Homeland Security released yesterday announcing that "approximately 40 foreign nationals were arrested this week in the five boroughs of New York City and the surrounding areas areas during a targeted enforcement operation conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) aimed at immigration fugitives, re-entrants and at-large criminal aliens," Deborah Axt, Co-Executive Director of Make the Road New York, issued the following statement on behalf of the organization's 20,000 members:

"Make the Road New York denounces these raids on our communities, which are designed to destroy families and spread panic and insecurity, weakening our city and the nation as a whole."[...]

Saturday, February 11, 2017

ICE spokespeople deny it, but this week the Trump
administration appears to have started implementation of its January 25 executive
order’s promised “removal of aliens who have no right to be in the United States.”

As of
February 10, ICE has:

Arrested 161
immigrants in an operation in southern
California. ICE claims that about 75 percent of the detainees had prior
felony convictions.

Deported an
undocumented woman when she appeared at the ICE office in Phoenix,
Arizona for a routine interview; her deportation had been stayed for four
years.

Arrested more than a dozen immigrants in Austin,
Texas, reportedly using traffic stops, visits to homes, and patrols around
a grocery store.

Seven people were arrested as about 200 protesters
gathered at the Phoenix ICE offices on February 8 in an attempt to block ICE vans and buses.

Protesters in downtown Los
Angelesclosed Aliso Street to traffic for about two hours on February 9,
chanting “No hate, no fear, immigrants are welcome here.”

Protesters gathered on February 10 at a corner in Austin where a man had been detained by ICE agents earlier in the day.

New York Communities for Change reported that more than
1,000 people joined a protest march in Manhattan the
evening of February 10, and at least 500 rallied in Washington
Square the afternoon of February 11.

Even the liberal New York Times spoke out, running an
editorial
noting that the removal of Guadalupe García de Rayos, the woman deported from Arizona,
didn’t support Trump’s claim that “bad dudes” would be the ones targeted.
Meanwhile, activist groups are making preparations for a more sustained defense
of immigrants threatened by the deportation policy. A February 10
tweet from United We Dream featuring “know your rights” information for
immigrants had been retweeted more than 8,400 times as of late afternoon the
next day.

A December article by Politics of Immigration
co-author David Wilson discusses reasons why the Trump administration would
focus on large-scale deportations and ways we could act to oppose Trump’s
Deportation Machine.”

In the past 72 hours, the Trump administration has begun a nationwide assault on immigrants and their families.

Reports of ICE (immigration) raids at grocery stores, food trucks, people's homes and at workplaces are coming in from Los Angeles to Atlanta and many communities in between. In this moment, it is more important than ever to ensure families know their rights if ICE agents come to their door.

Here are some simple things you can do right now to make sure you and immigrants in your communities know what to do if you see agents in your city:

Forward the below information to anyone you know who might be targeted by Trump's anti-immigrant agenda.

It's more important than ever for all of us to be in solidarity with each other because we know that our liberation is bound to each other. We must not be afraid, we must remain united and we must fight back!

What to Do if ICE (immigration) Comes to Your Door

As Trump continues to push his anti-immigrant agenda we want to make sure you Know your rights! Here are some steps to follow in the case ICE (immigration) comes to your door.

Do NOT open your door
Remain silent
Do NOT sign anything
Report and Record ( call our hotline 1-844-363-1423)
Fight back

About The Politics of Immigration

The Politics of Immigration: Questions and Answers is a book that goes beyond soundbites to tackle concerns about immigration in straightforward language and an accessible question-and-answer format. For immigrants and supporters, the book is a useful tool to confront stereotypes and disinformation. For those who are undecided about immigration, it lays out the facts and clear reasoning they need to develop an informed opinion. Ideal for classroom use, the updated and expanded 2017 edition provides a succinct overview of U.S. immigration history, policy, and practice, with detailed notes guiding readers toward further exploration.
Guskin and Wilson have written extensively on immigration and facilitated dozens of dialogues on the topic with students, community activists, congregations, and other public audiences. To arrange a dialogue or for more information, contact them at thepoliticsofimmigration@gmail.com.
To stay in the loop on author events and related resources, follow the book on Twitter (@Immigration_QA) and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/ImmigrationQA/).